Follow up to "dumb" Question: Has Cycle already "spiked" and is now stable?

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snoozin

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Mar 29, 2004
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OK. I appreciate all the feedback; quite helpful! Thank you all!

Next question, or maybe more follow-up. My nitrates and nitrites hit sky high last week (thats when everyone but the pleco went belly up, providing tons of food for the now humongous apple/mystery snail).

The readings have now dropped to the safe levels. Does that mean it's done cycling (even tho it's only been such a short time) or is it like a lion lying in wait, seeing how long it'll take before I spend more money on fishes so it can pounce and knock off another $$ worth of fish?
 

~*LuvMyKribs*~

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Nov 15, 2003
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www.aquaticescapes.ca
nitrites should be at zero when the cycle is complete. they are harmful and shouldn't be in a healthy tank. 'safe level' means zero, i believe. (i never did use test kits too much).

there will always be nitrates.... and they are removed by doing weekly/ bi-weekly/ ever-so-often waterchanges. you will keep them low by removing them through water changes.

if you have zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and some nitrates.... i would do a 25-50% waterchange and add some new fish. i didn't read your other post, but i would reccommend not adding too many fish. if you add a big load of fish then it will create a mini-cycle from the new bioload and you could possibly loose more fish due to this.

add them slowly.... few at a time. every few days even maybe.

you should still have a cycle in progress because of the pleco.... because if you completely removed all ammonia sources from the tank then the cycle would have stopped.

but if it didn't stop then you should be fine to begin to add your fish.
 

daveedka

Purple is the color of Royalty
Jan 30, 2004
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The readings have now dropped to the safe levels. Does that mean it's done cycling (even tho it's only been such a short time)
the time frames of a cycle vary greatly, depending upon about 300 different factors (Ok maybe not 300). The times you see posted (4-6 weeks) are usual numbers but not hard science. If your nitrite has dropped to 0 with the pleco still alive, the cycle is probably done, it would be OK to add some fish (1 or 2 per week) but test the water constanly, and if you see ammonia or nitrite showing up do water changes to prevent another backstroke party. If your nitrites aren't at zero, continue to monitor and do water changes untill they drop and stay down. be very careful with feeding IME with one fish it is almost impossible to underfeed unless you go an vacation for a month.
 
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